The opportunity to personalize features in a mobile vehicle is ever increasing as the automobile is being transformed into a communications and entertainment platform as well as a transportation platform. Many new cars will be installed with some type of telematics unit to provide wireless communication and location-based services. These services may be accessed through interfaces such as voice-recognition computer applications, touch-screen computer displays, computer keyboards, or a series of buttons on the dashboard or console of a vehicle.
Currently, telematics service call centers, in-vehicle compact disk (CD) or digital video display (DVD) media, web portals, and voice-enabled phone portals provide various types of location services, including driving directions, stolen vehicle tracking, traffic information, weather reports, restaurant guides, ski reports, road condition information, accident updates, street routing, landmark guides, and business finders.
For example, traffic and driving directions may be accessed through a voice portal that uses incoming number identification to generate location information based on the area code or prefix of the phone number, or to access location information stored in a user's profile associated with the phone number. Users may be prompted to enter more details through a voice interface. Other examples are web and wireless portals that offer location-based services such as maps and driving directions where the user enters both a start and end addresses. Some of these services may have a voice interface.
Some users want to receive and process diagnostic information about their vehicle at a portable communication device in the vehicle, to supplement and enhance the standard vehicle checkup at a vehicle service center. In addition some users want to be warned if there is a vehicle problem or a potential problem. Additionally, some users want a reminder to perform some service for the vehicle, such as an oil change. In order to provide that information to a user, at least a database with recent vehicle status information must be stored in an accessible memory. The memory in the telematics unit is often full with other critical vehicle information and does not have the sufficient memory allocated for all the recent vehicle status information.
Some users want to have access to a complete vehicle database that contains regularly updated input from the electronic modules of a vehicle. Such a complete database is useful for trouble-shooting a vehicle problem in the event that a vehicle problem develops over time. Storing a complete vehicle history of all vehicles in the telematics system can overwhelm the databases of a call center.
Currently, research is underway to provide integrated Vehicle Electronics systems, typically known as Vetronics, for military vehicles. The umbrella of Vetronics integrates intelligent systems, robotic mobility, system architecture and telematics in the most advanced military ground vehicle systems. Vetronics will be able to supply the soldiers with the data fusion required for high levels of situational awareness on a hostile battlefield. Vehicles with embedded Vetronics log data and send it to remote data centers.
It is desirable, therefore, to offer the user a short-range wireless connection with the telematics unit in the vehicle so that the telematics unit can send diagnostic information to the portable communication device. It is further desirable for the portable communication device to perform diagnostic analysis on the diagnostic information. It is further desirable to send the diagnostic information and the diagnostic analysis to an external database for storage.